Meaning of Dostoievskean | Babel Free

Definitions

Adjective. [C1]

Examples

“The actions of the Russians are little credible enough. But compared with Mr. Hughes ideas of the Nazi army, his Russians are Dostoievskean. One cannot but wish⟳ the real Nazi army were anything like⟳ what he imagines it to be.”

“For all their moral and intellectual anxieties, Jude and Sue give⟳ an impression of almost Dostoievskean simplicity and innocence, and their childlikeness, specifically reflected in Hardy’s abandoned title, “The Simpletons”, is emphasised throughout.”

“This was a thoughtful and critical attitude, and also, basically, a sombre one beside which John Cowper’s seemed to be that of an inspired idiot and innocent of the Dostoievskean kind; and Llewelyn’s the posture of an attitudinizing romantic.”

“In the Esmé story, for instance, Salinger’s surest masterpiece, the brilliant manipulation of a familiar crisis—devastated soldier finds an escape⟳ from his Dostoievskean hell through the kindness of a precocious girl—climaxes in a moment of karma that sidesteps the darker issue⟳ of the protagonist’s patent narcissistic fixation.”

CEFR level